General description

The course is offered at the University of Oslo. The introductory semester course consists of three units: Unit 1: Higher Education: General introduction, Unit 2: Changes in higher education's primary processes and Unit 3: The conditions under which higher education operates

Learning outcomes

During the course the students are introduced to (i) the history of higher education, (ii) the theories, concepts and terminology relevant to higher education, (iii) the range of disciplinary perspectives of relevance for analysing higher education, and (iv) the basic characteristics and underlying philosophies of higher education internationally. The aim of this first semester is to provide an introduction to the Master Programme on Higher Education. At the end of the semester the students should be able to apply the theories and concepts discussed in the course on practical higher education problems and issues.

Contents

During Unit 1 the students are introduced to higher education as a field of study and a social institution. This is done by discussing the basic structural and cultural characteristics of higher education, by reflecting upon the different disciplinary perspectives and main concepts and theories used to study higher education, and by presenting the main underlying philosophies of higher education internationally. Special attention is given to higher education systems from the countries of origin of the students enrolled in the programme. The course work in Unit 2 focuses on various aspects of teaching and learning, knowledge production and services in higher education. The topic is approached from a number of perspectives. Main foci are issues of curriculum management, roles of teachers and students in teaching and learning, new modes of research, quality in Higher Education and ICT as a teaching and learning instrument. Unit 3 deals with the changes in the traditional steering role of the nation state with respect to higher education. The reasons behind these changes may vary from country to country and from region to region. However, common for all countries are the intensifying effects of globalisation and trade liberalisation (resulting in a growing importance of supra-national structures such as EU, NAFTA and MERCOSUR) on higher education. The changing relationship between government and higher education has important consequences for higher education through issues such as higher education structure and organisation, the (public) funding of higher education, quality assessment of teaching and research, institutional leadership, management and governance, relationship between teaching and research, lifelong learning, etc. In this unit these issues will be discussed comparatively, with an emphasis on (but not limited to) the developments in Europe.

Teaching methods

Teaching method	Contact	Online
Lectures
Seminar

Teaching language

English

Evaluation

Numeric 1-5.

Recommended year of study

1. year autumn

Study materials

All students have to study a compendium consisting of the core literature for the course (about 900 pages in total).

Belongs to following study modules